The name [83] seems to offers neither phonetic nor
semantic difficulties. Attila is formed from Gothic or Gepidic atta,
"father," by means of the diminutive suffix -ila. It has often been
compared to batyushka, the diminituve of batya, "father,"
as the Russian peasants used to call the tsar. In 1962 the Uzbek poet Kāmil
Nughman Yäsin addressed Nikita Khrushchev as "the dear father of the Özbek
people." [84]

Attila is not a rare name. Venantius Fortunatus mentions a regulus
aulae domesticus by that name. [85] Ætla, bishop of
Dorchester, [86] was certainly not named after
the Hun king. [87] Ætla seems to be concealed in some English
place names (Attleford, Attlefield, Attleborough, Attlebridge).
[88]
Attila occurred as a monk's name in Switzerland as late as the twelfth
century. [89]

Some scholars, impressed by the similarity of
Attila to Ätil, the Turkish name of the Volga, equated the two names without
caring for their phonetic and semantic relationship. [90]
Rásonyi was slightly troubled by the final -a in Attila, but he thought
that he could dispose of it by going back to what he took to be the earliest
from. He regarded -aV in Priscus'
as the Greek ending and -a in Kéẓai's
Ethela as the old Magyar diminutive. In this way he arrived at Atil =
Ätil, Volga or perhaps just "big water." [91] However, the
thesis that Kéẓai,
who dedicated his Gesta Hungarorum to Ladislaus IV (1272-1290),
preserved genuine Magyar traditions about the Huns has long been refuted.
Eighty years ago Hodgkin wrote: "The Hungarian traditions no more fully
illustrate the history of Attila than the Book of Mormon illustrates
the history of the Jews." [92] Rásonyi's explanation of the
name in Priscus is unconvincing. As Latin Attila shows,

387

the name ends in -a, not in -l; compare
= Ansila,
= Hunila,
= Totila,
= Vulfila, and so forth.

Pritsak [93] offered an etymology of both the name
of the king and that of the river. In his opinion Atil, Adil,
and so forth, meant the same as Attila. He argues as follows:

1. In theByzantine sources the name of the Volga appears as (acc), , ,
and .

2. These forms show that the Altaic name of the Volga is compounded
of two words: aV and til, thl, tel. The second word could have the enlarged
form til + a.

3. There are two rivers called Tal; one flows into Lake Balkhash
and the other one is in the region of the Syr-Darya.

4. Common Turkish a/ä changed in Chuvash into
i/ï
in
very early times,

5. Chuvash *as, preserved only in suffixed forms, means "great,
big."

6. In Hunnish, which developed into Bulgar-Chuvash, *äs-tïl,
*as-tïl-a must have meant grosse Wassermenge, grosser Fluss,
grosses Meer.

This is an ingenious but for many reasons unacceptable etymology. To
begin with the arguments based on Chuvash words and forms, according to
Benzing (the leading authority on Chuvash), Turkish a/ä changed
to Chuvash i/ï not before the eleventh or twelfth century.
[94]
Even if there existed a Chuvash word *as, "big, great, large," how
can we know that in the language of the Huns in the fifth century the same
word existed with the same meaning? [At this point, one or two manuscript
pages are missing. — Ed.]

Bleda

Attila's older brother. The Greek sources have
and , the
Latin Bleda. [95] The Arian bishop whom Marcian
sent as his ambassador

388

to Geiseric, [96] and one of Totila's generals [97]
had the same name. It is generally agreed that Bleda is Germanic, the short
form of a name like OHG Bladardus, Blatgildus, Blatgisus.
[98]
Bleda of Marcellinus Comes (s.a. 442) appears in Bede's Chronicle
in the strange form Blædla. [99] The English scribes
"corrected" the name; they knew it as Blædla from oral tradition where the name
was adapted to Ætla. [100]

One of Attila's counselors, [101] by birth a Hun.
[102]
Edekon is Grecized *Edika; [103] the hypocoristic
form applied to a person whose true name began with Ed-, such as
Edivulf. [104]

Laudaricus

Killed in the battle at the locus Mauriacus. The Gallic chronicle
of 511 calls him cognatus Attilae. [105] Laudaricus
is Germanic *Laudareiks. [106]

Attila's prime minister. [107] Onegesius is evidently
not Greek [108] but the Grecized form of a barbarian
name. Hodgkin [109] boldly Hunnicized it into Onegesh.
*Oneges seems to be Hunigis, [110] as a spatharius
of Theoderic the Great was called. [111] -gis
appears in Greek transcriptions as giV and ghV,
[112]huni- is rendered by
and . [113]Hun-
in East Germanic

389

names is most probably the same as hun in OHG, OE, and ON names,
namely either ON húnn, "cub of a bear, young man," or proto-Germanic
hūn,
"high."
[114] Hunila, a Gothic bishop of about 400,
[115] was born and named before the Huns crossed the
Don.

I think Thompson is right in identifying Onegesius with Hunigasius,
Attila's interpreter and spokesman in the Vita s. Lupi. [116]
Rásonyi, taking -sios for the Greek ending, suggests a Turkish
etymology: oneki, "twelve." [117] However, among
the hundreds of transcriptions of foreign names listed by Moravcsik there
is not one ending in -esios. Oneki would have been transcribed *Onekios.
Onegesius is spelled like ,
and so forth.

Leader of the Ostrogoths in the last campaign against the East Romans
in 552-554. [118] He was not
with them but a Hun from the [119]
Ragnaris is a Germanic name. [120]

Ruga

The Eastern sources call Attila's uncle ,
and , [121]
the Western Ruga, [122] Roas, [123]
and Rugila. [124] These forms lead to Ruga > Rua and,
with the suffix -ila, to Rugila > Ruila. Compare Rugemirus, Rugolf,
and similar names. [125] The connection with Turkish
uruq,
favored by Markwart, [126] is phonetically unsound.

With the possible exception of Laudaricus and Ragnaris, these names
were not the true names of the Hun princes and lords. What we have are
Hunnic names in Germanic dress, modified to fit the Gothic tongue, or popular
Gothic etymologies, or both. Mikkola thought Attila might go back to Turkish
atlïg,
"famous"; [127] Poucha finds in it Tokharian atär,

390

"hero." [128] The first etymology is too farfetched
to be taken seriously, the second is nonsense.

92. Hodgkin 1898, 20. For a masterful
analysis of the Gesta Hungarorum, see Macartney 1951, and 1953,
89-109.

93. Pritsak 1956, 404-419. His
article takes some liberties with Priscus' text. In order to weaken the
thesis of the Gothic origin of the name Attila, Pritsak maintains that
Priscus negotiated with the king through the Roman Rusticius. But Maximianus,
not Priscus, negotiated with Attila, and the interpreter was not Rusticius
but Bigila who, as his names indicates, was most probably a Goth.

94.Fundamenta I, 705;
ZDMG
98, 1944, 24-27.

95. Moravcsik BT
2, 91; Schönfeld 1911, 51.

96. Priscus, EL 15126,
1521 ().

97. Procopius VII, 5, 1 ().

98. Schönfeld 1911,
51.

99.CM III, 303.

100. E. Schröder, ZfDA
41, 1897, 28.

101. Moravcsik, BT 2,
121.

102. Priscus, EL 1247.

103. Cf. Stilika, Stilikon.

104. There is no more reason
to identify the Hun Edekon with Idikon or Edico, Odovacar's father (cf.
Maenchen-Helfen 1947, 836-841) than with Edica, primas of the Sciri (Getica
277). The latter has nothing to do with Odovacar's father, as O. Vanshten
(Istorik marksist 6, 143-146) convincingly demonstrated. According
to Klebel (1957, 70, 118), the Bavarian name Etich, attested for the tenth
century, is a later form of Edica.